


Isle of Wight, 2010 (A Throwback for Helen on her Birthday)

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: 2010, Brit Pack, F/F, F/M, Isle of Wight, Kissing, M/M, Multi, New Year's Eve, Throwback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Fuck off,” Kristen said.  Rob grinned.  “I have a thing about first kisses, okay?  If I were a writer, I’d write a whole book of first kiss stories.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isle of Wight, 2010 (A Throwback for Helen on her Birthday)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovepollution](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovepollution/gifts).



> **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. No claim of knowledge or veracity is made towards anyone in the story and no aspersions or claims of character are to be inferred. No libel intended.  
>  **Notes** : For Helen on her birthday, in hopes of making her feel young again. I love you. ♥

Dakota’s fingers were tiny and chilly in Art’s hand as they made their way across the English rocks towards the embankment where their friends’ bonfire and laughter beckoned. The wind was biting cold where it rolled off the water, but Dakota’s pink cheeks were hot. 

“Oh, here they come!” hollered Shannon. Andrew wolf-whistled and toasted them with his (ninth) beer, sloshing all over his girlfriend.

“How was it?” asked Russell. “Use the English charm, Arthur?”

“Are you boyfriend and girlfriend now?” Katy asked. On anyone else, it would have inspired lots of eye-rolling, but Katy was Katy and completely sincere.

“We don’t kiss and tell,” said Arthur, pulling Dakota down into his lap. 

“I taught him everything he knows,” Tom boasted, nodding winsomely at Dakota. “Unless he fucked up, in which case, he just copied everything from Robby.”

Dakota’s cheeks burned as bright as her paramour’s hair.

Kristen glowed at the pair. “I think it’s sweet.”

Rob pulled back to stare down at the little brunette in his arms. “Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”

“Fuck off,” Kristen said. Rob grinned. “I have a thing about first kisses, okay? If I were a writer, I’d write a whole book of first kiss stories.”

Katy bounced excitedly, many pairs of eyes following her chest. “I love that idea!” she squealed. “Oh, but my first kiss with Russy was the best of all.”

“Doubt it,” chimed Andrew and Shannon, Rob and Kristen, and Tom. 

“Oh, really?” asked Katy. “Well, it was on the set of Get Him to the Greek – ”

“Eh,” buzzed Tom, mimicking a warning siren. “Ten points off; movie kiss.”

“But – ” Katy looked crestfallen, her blue eyes huge. She stared sadly into her empty beer bottle. “But it was a really cute kiss, because he kissed me, and I tripped, and my foot popped, like in the Princess Diaries, and I was all ‘Ooh!’ and he was all, ‘Oy, I’ve kissed Katy Perry and liked it!’”

The group stared at her.

“That’s disgusting,” Art said flatly. Dakota nodded from her perch on his lap.

“That’s not disgusting, Katy,” said Laura encouragingly. “It’s – I mean it’s odd, but that’s quite sweet. It all worked out for you both, so it’s a good story.”

“You know what’s a better story, though?” Tom asked innocently. “The first time that Katy and _I_ kissed.” 

Russell leveled Tom with a Very Intimidating Stare across the popping orange bonfire. “What’s that?”

“Oh, yeah, Katy kissed me,” Tom said, unaffected. “It was before you met. I was visiting my dearest Andrew, and it was a magical Friday night. Katy grabbed me and kissed me as the chandelier crashed to the floor.” 

“How did the chandelier fall?” asked Dakota. She leaned back against Art’s spindly chest. She appreciated that she wasn’t treated like the baby of the group, but they certainly never invited her to Katy’s parties where people danced on tabletops and chandeliers crashed to the floor and there was streaking and skinny-dipping (or so the photos in the ‘TGIF’ folder of Kristen’s e-mail led her to believe).

“Wait, I kissed you?” asked Katy. Her platter eyes were wide with horror now. “Oh, gosh, I don’t remember that!”

“Well, you kissed Andrew, too,” Tom reported. “And Shannon. And… Eddie, I think?”

“No, she didn’t kiss me at that party,” Eddie corrected. “She kissed me at the party when Rob’s car was towed.”

“That was a good party,” Shannon remarked. “I think that was the first time Andy kissed Robby, wasn’t it?”

“You say it like it’s continued to happen subsequent times,” Andrew laughed. 

“It has,” said Kristen and Shannon flatly.

Rob’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“You two decided to make it a tradition, don’t you remember?” Shannon asked.

Andrew searched his girlfriend’s face for the telltale crease between her eyes that meant she was taking the mickey, but she seemed –

“You’re completely serious,” he said, aghast. “What kind of a tradition?”

“Every time Sam gets drunk enough to kiss someone, _you_ kiss each other,” Kristen said, sounding thoroughly unamused. “And considering Sam’s a huge fucking lush, it’s become pretty mainstay of Katy’s parties.”

“I do not kiss people when I’m drunk,” Sam argued, gesturing a bit loosely with his bottle of Absolut.

“You really do,” said Marcus gently, putting a consoling hand on Sam’s arm.

“You’re all taking the piss,” Sam said. He put down his vodka all the same. “Who here have I kissed when I was drunk?”

Rob glanced around the circle and slowly raised his hand. “We were twelve, Sam. Twelve. _You were my first kiss_.” He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even remember. Way to drive a stake into my heart.”

“I thought I was your first kiss,” Tom said, sounding sulky.

“Oh, that didn’t count,” Rob dismissed, waving a hand. “That was a practice kiss.”

“Practice for Sam, apparently,” Kristen snorted. Rob swatted her behind as she leaned over to get a bottle of Raz.

Tom, still grinning at Sam, raised his hand. “You used to kiss me every weekend back at college. I was like your kissing dummy.”

“You’re everyone’s everything dummy,” Kristen mumbled. 

Tom threw a gooey marshmallow at her and she ducked into Rob’s arms, laughing. Rob grinned down at her and pressed his warm lips to the bridge of her cold ear. 

“I prefer ‘chivalrous and desired male social companion,’ thanks,” Tom said, stretching as though to yawn, and putting his arm around Carey instead. “Besides, those days are over now. These luscious lips now belong only to Academy Award Nominee Carey Mulligan.”

“I hate when you call me that,” Carey said, pushing Tom’s face away.

“Everyone else gets to,” he whined. “Why not me?”

“You say it like ‘Academy Award Nominee’ is my given name, that’s why,” Carey laughed. “Seriously, it’s weird.”

“Alright, Sally Sparrow. Whatever you say.”

“Now, hold on,” Sam said. “Who else have I kissed? Two people does not a drunken kissing zombie make.”

“When I taught you ‘Master of Puppets,’” Johnny said sheepishly, raising his hand. “But I thought it was perfectly logical at the time. Song’s quite difficult.”

“When we beat Team Adventure Playground at COD for the first time,” Bobby admitted. He took a long sip of beer. “I don’t think I’ve been the same since, honestly.”

“I don’t think there was a good reason you kissed me,” Marcus said thoughtfully. “You just used to grab my face sometimes.”

Everyone – except Sam – laughed.

“He put his tongue in my mouth once!” Marcus said, his eyes wide and sincere. “It was a bit more than I bargained for, really, when you all asked me out to drinks.”

“Was that the first time you met the ruffians?” asked Laura, aghast.

“No,” Marcus said, “But it was the first time I went drinking with them. Sam went on a kissing rampage.”

“Oh, I remember that night,” Eddie said, snapping his fingers. “Tommy and I were filming together, he brought me along. Sam kissed me then, too. Very violently, as I recall. It was a rampage indeed.”

What Eddie didn’t mention was that he and Tom had kissed earlier that day, quietly, when the cameras stopped rolling on a particularly fraught scene – when Nigel accosts Alex in the greenhouses. Tom had been different back then, a little more shy and a lot less confident. It was Tom’s first big role, and he was so eager for advice and friendship and approval. But he smiled more, and Eddie had been swept up in those smiles, and –

Eddie shook his head, the memory still pulling his lips. They had been young and dumb then. 

“Well, you can all fuck off,” Sam grumped. 

“Oh, Sammy Boy, cheer up,” chided Russell. “You’re not the only kissing zombie. I think my lady’s kissed everyone here, but you don’t see me complaining.” He paused. “Exactly – actually, exactly how many of you has Missus Snoogle-Woogums kissed?”

Rob raised a hand. “Shannon’s birthday last year. But it was through two Darth Vader masks, so you can choose whether to count it.”

“I did that night, too,” Kristen said, “Later, at the slumber party.”

All sets of eyes zoomed to Kristen’s face. 

“You made out at a slumber party?” asked Bobby, shifting where he sat.

“Was it like… just you and Katy, or was there a big… group of… roiling… pajama-clad women… involved?” asked Art, peering eagerly over Dakota’s shoulder. Dakota elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Ouch! Fuck it all, Dee, you know I have no bodyfat whatsoever to absorb such blows!”

“What were you wearing?” Tom leered, ignoring his younger brother’s skeletal distress.

Kristen shook her head, but she smiled. “Pajamas. You can imagine that however you want.” 

“And Arfy,” said Shannon, wiggling one eyebrow, “I think the whole thing started when Kristen kissed _me_.”

“Oh, god, you’re killing me,” groaned Art. Dakota jabbed another well-placed elbow and he wheezed. “Ohgodyou’rekillingme.”

“Stop being a pig,” Dakota said.

“Yes, dear.”

“Well, I feel left out,” Laura said, surprising them all. “I haven’t kissed hardly anyone here.”

“Here,” offered Dakota, crawling across the cold sand. She took Laura’s face in her hands and gave the older girl a peck on the lips.

Of course, what all of the men in the circle saw was two blondes kissing. 

“Oh my god, you’re killing me!” howled Arthur, frozen in place by the boulder. Blonde hair blowing in the night breeze. Two discomfited, proud smiles. One little hand with blue-polished nails squeezing a little hand with nails bitten to the quick.

“Are you jealous?” Rob needled Kristen, squeezing her tight. “You’ve kissed Dakota, too.”

“Well, like Tom said, minus ten points for it being a movie kiss,” Kristen said wryly. “No, I’m not jealous. Are you a moron?”

Rob pouted. “Maybe.”

Andrew shook his head and toasted the bonfire with yet another beer as Dakota crawled back over to Arthur. “Happy New Year.”

“I’ll say,” Shannon said. “Katy, Kristen, come on, Team Brunette needs its points back.”

Kristen groaned. “Ugh, no fucking ‘Team Anything,’ _please_.”

Katy leaned over Russell’s legs to put her head in Shannon’s lap. “What the heck. My one-and-only girl _frand_ , lay it on me.”

Shannon bent down and kissed Katy’s nose. “That’s not how you should behave.”

Katy laughed and stayed where she was as Shannon began to play with the plum streaks dyed into her black hair. “My head gets so confused.”

“You can kiss, you know,” Russell told his wife. “Her boyfriend don’t mind it.”

“It’s true,” Andrew confirmed. “I mind that so much less than when you kiss me.”

“Shut your mouth, Andy Pandy,” Katy said lazily, her eyes closed. “Shannon only kissed you that first time because we were all playing Spin-the-Bottle.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Shannon said. “We were playing Spin-the-Bottle because I wanted to kiss him.”

“Were you shy back then or something?” Johnny asked. “Hard to imagine.”

“I can be shy,” Shannon said. “I can be quite the delicate flower.”

“What, like a Venus flytrap?” asked Eddie innocently.

“Yes. I lure men in with my sweet, sweet nectar and then I bite their balls off,” Shannon said pleasantly. “Just ask Arfy.”

Dakota cocked her head and looked up at her new boyfriend. “What does she mean?”

Art glared at Shannon and covered Dakota’s eyes. He sighed. “Once, when I was visiting Tom and taking a tour at UCLA, I went round to Shannon’s place to borrow Andrew’s ID for beer, and I – well, I tried to K-I-S-S her.”

“Why are you spelling?” Dakota asked.

“So you can’t hear me, dearest; I’m not like that anymore. I used to be such a dirty little ginger before you.”

“You’re still a dirty ginger,” Dakota said, her eyes still obscured by his freakishly large, pale hand.

“Gross,” echoed the rest of the circle as one.

“Speaking of dirty,” said Marcus, “How is it that Sam, The Mouth Marauder, has never kissed Kissing Party Katy Perry?”

Katy opened one eye and considered Sam. “Have I kissed you?”

“Dunno,” Sam shrugged. “Have I kissed her?”

Russell looked from Katy, lying across his lap, to Sam, across the circle. “Oh, go on, then.”

Sam balked. “What? Now?”

Russell shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Seems inevitable to me, innit? You’re both kissing machines as I see it.”

Sam handed Marcus his vodka and stood up, a little unsteadily, to walk across the circle. He bent over awkwardly, trying not to knock heads with Shannon on his way down, and landed a sloppy kiss on Katy’s lips.

“I’ve just kissed someone’s wife,” he said, a little mystified, after.

Russell grabbed Sam’s face and slobbered a wet one that covered both Sam’s mouth and chin all at once. “And now you’ve kissed someone’s husband, so it all balances out.”

Everyone else in the circle roared in laughter as Sam wiped his face frantically and stumbled back to his place between Marcus and Bobby.

“So is your wife free range for snogging, then?” asked Bobby, “Or do all people who kiss Katy also need to kiss you?”

“Nah,” Katy laughed, waving Bobby on. “Come on, then.”

Sam took his vodka back – “Disinfectant” – and tried to ignore everything going on in his life as Katy finally sat up and made her way crawling across the circle to kiss Bobby on the cheek.

“That’s not a kiss,” Bobby argued as Katy made her way back to sit in Russell’s lap again.

“I’m willing to give you a bit more sugar, if you want,” Russell said suggestively. “Anyone? Anyone?”

Rob shook his head. “I’ve already been there. Thanks for that, by the way. Did not exactly raise my spirits after hearing you call me ‘R-Pattz.’”

“I didn’t write the script,” Russell said breezily. “Anyway, no takers? Really? You’re all such lovely people.” Russell focused laser-eyes on Tom. He pointed to the younger man. “But you – I’m watching you. You watch your back.”

Tom raised his hands innocently. “Hey, I’m the least of your problems. I’ve got Academy Award Nominee Carey Mulligan now.”

Carey reached behind her and there was a squeal as she pinched Tom’s kidney. 

“Not for much longer, you don’t, if you keep bleeding calling me that.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Wow.” Dakota sounded impressed. Art sat behind her, twisted like a pretzel between her body and the boulder he rested against, elaborately braiding Dakota’s long, blonde hair. “Carey, you tamed a Sturridge so quickly. It’s taken me months. Ouch, Art, quit pulling like that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Art contritely.

Shannon hit Andrew’s arm. “Why don’t you give in that quickly?”

Andrew looked politely confused. “Because I’m not a ginger?”

“Hey!” yelled Art.

Tom just blinked and smiled wickedly. 

“I _like_ standing next to you, Andrew,” he said, in an exaggerated slur of an accent, “It makes me look so tough.”

“Don’t make me fuck you up, Sturridge,” Shannon growled, looking surprisingly menacing for holding a toasty-brown, roasting marshmallow. 

“That sounds familiar,” Tom said. “Minus the ‘don’t’ and the ‘up.’”

“What are you talking about?” Andrew asked suspiciously. “You’ve only known Shannon since I have.”

Tom had the decency to look embarrassed. “It was before you met. I was in Los Angeles visiting She Who Must Not Be Named – ”

“Camilla,” supplied Art helpfully for Dakota’s benefit.

“She got upset, I got drunk and went out, Shannon was at a club, La Vida Loca was playing, you know how I get.” 

“You and my girlfriend had sex in a club to Ricky Martin music and this is the first I’m hearing of it?” shrieked Andrew, in that shrill way that only ten beers and counting can cause.

“No,” Shannon said crossly. “We just made out for a while. Then he said his name was Cuthbert McBurgers and I realized what a fucking drunk weirdo he was and I left.” 

“And to be fair, I think I kissed you to Shake Your Bon-Bon about a week later, if that makes you feel better,” Tom said thoughtfully, tipping his own beer to Andrew.

“You really have kissed nearly everyone here, haven’t you,” said Laura, not sure how it made her feel in the pit of her stomach to know that maybe the wine-soaked kiss she shared with Tom last summer meant nothing. It was hard to be the only people you knew who were perpetually alone, and once – just once, just that one night – Laura and Tom had been alone _together_. 

Tom had dribbled dark purple-red staining rioja into her navel and let it run down her side before lapping it up, his scrubby beard scratching more pink into her skin. 

But apparently he had that with everyone.

“Not everyone,” Tom said, honestly uncomfortable. He knew, with Kristen, it had just been the glasses. It had been the glasses and Kerouac and the bebop jazz, and it had been Marylou kissing Carlo. It wasn’t really His Best Friend’s Girl, it was just the magic of movies. But it still made him squirm to think of it. 

And Dakota – little, _young_ Dakota who was his baby brother’s girlfriend, _no one_ could know about what happened when she visited London last spring. He still didn’t really know why he kissed her or – 

She just seemed sad. Not sad, exactly; expectant and wishful and inarticulate about what she wanted and Tom was a cocky little shit, so he knew what she was looking for when her skirt pulled up on her thigh. 

And anyway, Nettie was in Portugal that weekend.

God, Tom hoped that Dakota never told anyone about that. And that made him sad. She should be allowed to tell Kristen and Carey and her friends about her first time.

But that would mean that Tom would have to fight Art, and Art fought dirty. It was all fish-hooking and ball-twisting with that wily ginger asshole. And sometimes he filed his fingernails right next to Tom’s ear, and he HATED that. He hated that like Marcus hated the street-sweepers.

“Those days are over,” Tom reiterated, tucking his chin into Carey’s shoulder. Carey yelped as his thick beard tickled her neck, but she grinned all the same.

She had been so skeptical when Andrew and Kristen ganged up on her with perfectly matching texts about “Hey, I think my friend Tom would be perfect for you,” and “Hey, I know, what if you come to the Chateau for drinks?” and “Hey, Tom’s coming to town, he wants to meet you. Okay?”

_Subtle._

Tom was not subtle. What he said to her that night, first thing out of his mouth, was, 

“Shia is a fucking dumbass.”

Fortunately it had been long enough that Carey laughed, and Tom bought her a drink – something bitter with a lime wedge in it – and that was that. When he kissed her later that same night as he dropped her off at the door of the Best Western, Carey felt something she hadn’t in months.

Wanted.

Plus, Tom came with a set of like, twelve friends. Like Barbie. Only she didn’t have to purchase them all separately, because they came as a party pack. A British party pack. Maybe that’s where the name came from.

She ought to stop drinking for the night, really.

“Do you think other families of actors are quite this incestuous?” Carey asked curiously, taking a bottle of water from Dakota. “I’ve only just joined your cult and I’ve kissed four of you. Eddie in a workshop, Kristen by accident, and Andrew filming of course, doesn’t count.”

“And me,” Shannon said, “Just in passing.”

“And me,” Johnny offered, and everyone looked to him with eyebrows raised – Carey included.

“When did I kiss you?” Carey asked. “Do I even know you, really?”

Johnny shrugged. “I dunno, but we must’ve.” He looked around the circle through the crackling firelight. “I’m just trying to feel less left out, alright?”

Carey laughed, her head resting against Tom’s shoulder, as Marcus and Bobby thumped Johnny on the back in sympathy.

“Alright,” she laughed. “We’ve kissed then.”

“Good,” Johnny said happily. “Then I’ve kissed _someone_ in my entire life.” 

Dakota, nearly asleep now in Arthur’s lap, didn’t mention that she’d done quite a bit of secret something with a very-drunk Johnny at South by Southwest. (Dakota completely blamed Kristen for her newfound fondness for British men, and Tom for her proclivity towards hidden bad behavior. She would play the ‘I’m young and impressionable and you’ve all corrupted me’ card if it came down to it, but she hoped it never would.) 

Anyway, Dakota suspected that Johnny had thought she was Laura, because he buried his face in her hair during and kept whispering apologies.

The next day, Kristen told Dakota in hushed whispers that she had accidentally kissed Johnny the night before, and did Dakota think Johnny would tell Rob?

Dakota shook her head and patted Kristen’s hand and bought her a coffee and a bagel. Everything would be alright.

“I don’t think they are,” Dakota mumbled, yawning. “I think most families of actors these days are just fake. Like all the ones my age. None of that’s real.”

“Oh, don’t even get started with that,” Kristen and Rob groaned in tandem. “Leave poor Taylor alone.”

“Boy-Taylor,” corrected Rob quickly. “Girl-Taylor can bugger right off.”

“Seriously, don’t fucking start,” Kristen scowled, holding her hand over Rob’s mouth. “It’s all over. We’re done filming that franchise forever. You will never have to watch Joe Jonas eating a breakfast burrito and staring at Taylor’s ass at four in the morning _ever again_.”

“That’s not the only thing I’ve seen Joe doing to Taylor’s ass at four in the morning,” Rob mumbled. “I’m scarred, Kristen. I’m scarred.”

“I know, honey,” Kristen said, and pet his hair genially, even as she rolled her eyes. “You’re scarred. It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to imagine anything _less_ than those two snogging,” Sam said thoughtfully. “I mean, really, that’s about the worst thing I could think of.”

“Laura, Dakota, kiss again, quick!” urged Bobby. “Or Katy and Shannon. Anyone, quick. Bleach my brain, please.”

Marcus held Bobby’s face firmly and pressed his lips to the other boy’s.

“It’s like a giant cloud of facial hair,” Katy said thoughtfully, framing it with her hands.

“It’s like a Yeti,” said Andrew and Shannon together. Shannon smiled up at Andrew, who nuzzled her nose in return.

Bobby blinked once. Twice. Five or six times.

“That was not what I meant,” he said finally. “But it did distract me. Good on you, Marco.”

“You’re all so debauched,” Eddie yawned, stretching his long, noodly arms. “My highbred sensibilities are offended.”

“Yeah, like you and Wills never got up to anything in the dormitories,” snorted Andrew. “I’ll believe that when pigs fly.”

“Believe what you like,” Eddie said mildly. “A gentleman of my good breeding never kisses and tells.”

“Um, but I do,” Shannon said, “And you’ve kissed Andy _and_ me, so you can take your good English breeding and stuff it.”

“I only kissed you when we beat the Green Team bowling!” Eddie exclaimed. “And Andrew kissed _me_.”

“Only when we beat the Blue Team at bowling!” squeaked Andrew. 

“We really need to stop getting so excited about bowling,” Eddie said thoughtfully, and Andrew and Shannon nodded, shamefaced.

Everyone else in the circle nodded too, more disgusted.

“And of course I think I was the very first person here to kiss Kristen,” Eddie said. “When she was a wee young mite no older than Dakota.”

“Ah, yes, my first Brit,” Kristen sighed. “I blame you.”

“You can thank me, Robert,” Eddie preened, winking. Rob shook his head, but smiled: anything that could have possibly led him to Kristen, he would be forever thankful.

“What was your first kiss like?” Carey asked, craning her neck to look at her friend Kristen. “I mean your real one.”

Kristen looked up at Rob. 

“I think our first kiss in general was our real first kiss,” she said. “I mean, no offense to Jackson or anybody, but… I picked Rob for a reason, you know? There was just something real there. And it was a _really_ fucking good kiss.”

“I don’t think that was our first,” Rob said quietly. “Do you remember – you probably don’t remember – we were rehearsing at Ashley’s flat, the bit when Bella has to go to Phoenix with Alice and Jasper… and we were eating a pizza, and you had your mouth full of pepperoni, but I kissed you. We didn’t have any direction for that bit yet, so you know, we just assumed we’d kiss there. But um – yeah, I’ve always thought that was the first time that you kissed me back as yourself. Not as Bella, you know?”

“I do remember that,” Kristen said. “Didn’t I spit cheese into your mouth?”

“I always thought that was accidental.”

Kristen nodded. “Ah.”

“I love you anyway,” Rob offered. He sniffed the top of her head.

“God, you’re weird,” Kristen muttered. “But I love you, too.”

“Ours was better,” Shannon said smugly. “It was classic.”

“Oh my gosh, your first kiss was terrible,” Katy laughed. “One of the worst I’ve ever heard. Besides like… almost all of them tonight.”

“I thought you first kissed during Spin the Bottle,” Laura said.

“Um, no, that wasn’t real. That’s like two points up from a movie kiss. No, it was amazing,” Shannon argued. “Andrew was my barista at Starbucks and I had a huge crush on him. So I went in like, every single day at four o’clock and got a Frap. And I would leave increasing tips, like, I left a penny, and then a nickel, and then a dime, and then like eleven cents –” She held up a shushing hand before the Sturridge brothers could even interrupt. “I’m a TV actress, okay? I’m poor. So then finally after I was out like, ten bucks a day between the Frap and the tip, I was like, ‘Hey, come here, floppy-head British kid, I have a tip for you.’ And he walked over. And I kissed him. And then I ran away.”

“That’s adorable,” Carey said.

“That’s awful!” exclaimed Tom. “I mean, seriously, that’s like sitcom-awful. _American_ sitcom awful.”

“Um, maybe it’s British rom-com awful,” offered Shannon innocently. “Maybe it’s Richard Curtis film awful.”

“Let’s not get ugly,” said Laura mildly. “And just agree that the reasoning was quite cute, and the execution somewhat flawed.”

“Oh, like that time Marcus tried to seduce you,” Bobby said, snapping his fingers and pointing to Laura.

She sighed. “I was hoping that might stay buried.”

“Not a chance,” said Bobby. “He _cooked you dinner_. And you _still_ shot him down.”

“I tried really hard,” Marcus said, sounding hurt.

“Did you taste that dinner?” Laura asked, incredulously. “To this day I’m not sure whether that was whitefish or beef.”

“It was chicken,” Marcus grumbled. “And Bobby said it was rather good.”

“I was baked off my arse,” Bobby said incredulously. “I think I ate _the box the PopTarts came in_ after I finished that chicken. And that was good, too.” 

Johnny leveled a dark blue gaze across the fire at Laura. “Did he really kiss you?”

She nodded. “I tried to turn my cheek, but he got a bit of top lip.”

Not like whenever Johnny kissed her. How he knew exactly where to bite her lip, and how if he stroked a calloused finger along the blue veins at the inside of her elbow, she went weak. How the first time he kissed her was at the shore, this shore, on this sea, this night two years before, and he looked so guilty after, but held her hand all the same.

A larum, alarm, Laura M.

She was one of the little voices that lived in his head, and she was flawed by his sound, and it was completely wrong in every way –

But maybe, just maybe, they were soulmates.

And the last time, the last time, the last time three months ago, he whispered, “I was finally going to leave and choose you. But… ”

But instead he was getting married to someone else. Instead, he was having a baby with someone else. 

So this year there would be no early morning bicycle ride down to the sea, and the letter Laura had been in the midst of writing when he told her he was engaged would always sit unfinished.

“I got some tongue off her when I kissed her,” said Art suddenly, following with a loud shriek as Dakota got his ribs again.

“You’re getting shrill, Arfy,” Tom warned.

“What do you mean, you got some tongue off her?” Johnny asked, forgetting his place.

“Yeah, when I kissed Laura last year, I got one half a tit, and some tongue.” 

“How do you get half a tit?” asked Bobby.

“You get slapped across the face before you finish groping,” said Art matter-of-factly. “But when I kissed _Shannon_ , I got a full tit. And then Andrew punched me in the face.”

“And you deserved it,” Andrew said. “Besides, now you can tell all of your little friends that you once got clocked in the face by motherfucking Spider-Man. Motherfucking Spider-Man punched you in the face.”

“Are you always going to call yourself Motherfucking Spider-Man?” asked Rob, laughing.

“Yes. Because if Christian Bale can be the Goddamn Batman, then I can be the Motherfucking Spider-Man.”

“I had to be the one to punch Art in the face when he groped me,” Kristen said sadly. “Rob just stood there in shock.”

“Well, what sort of a person goes around kissing other people’s girlfriends right in front of them?” exclaimed Rob. “I _was_ in shock!”

“Um, everyone here tonight?” offered Carey. 

“That’s true,” said Art. “And since that is the case, I’m going to own up to kissing Katy once, too. Or rather, Katy kissed me. Or rather, she once bent over me trying to reach something behind me and her boobs hit me in the mouth and I’m going to count that, because she’s Katy Perry.”

“Gross,” said Dakota sleepily, shifting out of his lap to lean against Kristen’s side. Her eyes were closed, and she was too tired to hit him. He could get his comeuppance come morning. 

“It was a little gross,” admitted Arthur. “Those things have mass. I got a bloody lip. But that may have been from all the sequins, those fuckers are sharp.” Then his dark, sharky eyes got a devious look. “You know… there is one person here whom I’ve not kissed who would be quite the bragging rights.”

“You are not kissing the Motherfucking Spider-Man,” said Andrew warningly, holding his hands over his mouth.

“No, no,” Arthur said, crouching onto all fours and beginning to make his way around the campfire. “I don’t want to kiss you, Andrew. But I think it’d drop _all_ the panties if I’d kissed Edward Cullen.”

Rob scrambled to his feet with surprising agility for the level of drunk he had surpassed. “No!”

Art continued towards, unfurling his great height like a leaf. “Come on, Patty. Just a quick one. I won’t even grope.”

“No!” Rob took off running across the uneven dunes. He recalled a nature special he’d once seen about alligators, or perhaps bears, or maybe it was sharks, and ran in a zig-zag pattern, hoping desperately that he could find a tree to climb.

He had a _lot_ of practice climbing trees now. 

[](http://statcounter.com/free-web-stats/)


End file.
